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COPYRIGHT 
NINETEEN THREE. 

BY 

DOUGLASS BANCROFT. 



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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/mennoriabeataOObanc 



TiIrmQiia ^kata. 



c. s. p. 

December 25, ISSl. 

I. 

In every heart a long-closed chamber stands 
Wherein we fear to look, where humbly bows each head, 

Whose gates we open with reluctant hands 
And gaze with sorrow on our old selves — dead: 

There lie lost dreams of our soul's first fair lands 
There lie lost hopes o'er which, if we but think 

Of that dread chainber opened by strange hands, 
The old pangs rend us and our scarred hearts sink: 

For we, untrue to all our early dreams 
Let sordid cares on heavenly themes encroach 

Till wraith-like statues melt in ghostly gleams; 
Each a lost self, with face of mute reproach: 

Scarred, changed, defaced from all our hope and youth 
Transmitted vice and self-invited sin 

Have wrought this havoc— till we cry in ruth, 
This, what I am! This — what I might have been! 



II. 

So do I dream of all the dear, dead time 
When hand in hand together we had been, 

Then couldst thou tune me to thy heavenlj' chin^e 
Unfoldino- glories of the love iinseen. 

Hope's sun, that once lit all my fairy tosvera 
In those bright days when blest I walked with thee 

Shines, since yon soared to fairer worlds than ours 
1'hrough cloud and darkness o'er a sullen sea. 

Friends whisper, "Peace!" yet in my heart sharp swords 
Smite thro' their feeble words a blow swift driven; 

She is in Peace, and yet I cry wild words ;- 
"If we are parted can her Heaven be Heaven'? 

Where art thou now O Friend, O Lover— all? 
Breathest thou fond airs of some heavenly clime, 

Hearest thou pitying to my sorrow's call. 
Or art thou lost to Life and Love and Time? 

I quest of Death, I dully quest of Life, 
I wonder whither is our aimless course: 

If we have haven after our short strife. 
Find ',\e in Death oblivion or worse?" 





Men strove for answer since the world's first youth 
And grew to larger stature in the strife, 

For Doubt was ever nurse to nobler Truth, 
And out of suffering comes the soul's best life: 

From clouds of Doubt streamed brighter rays of thought 
Lighting the path for others' Faith and Deed; 

Yet what of them who in the darkness wrought 
Dying in birth-throes of the nobler creed? 

To them no light, to them no blessed hope 
To meet the friends in former days held dear: 

Walking in darkness ever, must they grope 
And questioning hover 'twixt their faith and fear; 

For none can tell; past those dread Iron Gates 
Our tear-blvirred eyes are mocked by rayless gloom; 

Faith with Despair all equal by them waits, 
Sinner and sinless share a common doom. 

III. 

So must they weep, who'er would serve for Truth — 
That bitter Teacher, bringing blood-bought good, 

She slays her priests nor ever thinks of ruth 
Till fierv links unite her brotherhood: 




Her (_'ourt a pri.«on and her frown — of tliorns, 
Iler path, the path b^' anguished martyrs trot'!; 

Still she proclaims, instraets and comforts, warns, 
Ami at her altar serves the most high God: 

For God at His right hand holds Absolute Truth 
And nearest lies His grit't, that Truth to search. 

And we must seek, thro' blood and tea,rs in sootis. 
Thro' blinded gropings, thro' all Creed and Churrh, 

Nor end the search while yet Earth-bound we dwell 
And in that search our finite na.tnres own ; 

Her awful splendors mortals may not tell : 
Truth Absolute, O God, is Thine alone! 

Eternity itself is not too long 
For our yoixng souls to reach their perfect growth. 

To learn in schools of suffering to be strong 
And make us living lights of perfect Truth. 

O thou, who reached the land of Faith's sweet rest 
Thro' Doubt's dark road and waters of Despair, 

How shall I reach that country ever blest 
Tn the calm regions of the upper air? 




I cannot pray, I have no life, no thought, 
Kaught but one wish to tell me that I live- 
To see thy face, could that dear boon be Ijought 
^ly hope of Heaven I would gladly give 

IV. 

Yet 'tis but Hope that whispers to our trust, 
Tho' faltering Reason may not give assent, 

"Something remains beyond the fleeting dust 
When the short fever of our life is spent; 

Something too great for Earth's contracted stage 
Too large to write its final record here. 

Needing another world, a wider age, 
A longer lesson and a nobler sphere; 

The soul must heed the law of growth divine 
While the frail body mingles with the sod 

Till inward Truth, and Grace, its outward sign, 
Stamps it the image of its Maker — God." 

— A faltering hope, close mingled with despair 
A faltering hope with heaviest fear alloyed 

That all my cry falls on the empty air. 
And al! that other world is soundless void; 




Yet through long- days thou callest from afar 
Througb the long nights Lovo lights with glowing flame, 

Through the long years thou shiniest from thy star, 
What matters Time if Lovo be still the same? 

V. 

A.S some poor seamstress Innds, with far-away 
And sad, sweet thoughts upon the lengthening seam, 

I link my chain and bind up with each day 
Soiue cherished fragment of our dear lost dream. 

How could I raise mine. Earth-bound eyes to thee. 
Thou lily in God's garden of purs souls? 

— My love, my love! Mine all- mtficient pkia 
Still wrings my heart and still my heart controls. 

I was uot fit to win thy white soul's love 
And when thoa stooped from thy most high estate 

Humbly I worshipped, and yet hoped to prove 
Thy grace in stooping had not been too great: 

Thy life seemed set to secret music's strains, 
Some far-off chime that thou alone couldst hear 

Pulsing its music from those heavenly plains, 
Too pure, too perfect for mine Earth-bound ear; 



Come, from yon far-off worlds of glittering light, 
Come, from remoter stars where seraphs reign, 

Come thou to bless my longing, aching sight, 
Stoop from thy heaven and give me heaven again: 

Whence burns thy star amid yon glittering host 
Or near or far, when in the dying night 

The moon lies stranded on Morn's pallid coast, 
A dream of day without its garish light: 

"O give me tears or else my heart will break!" 
I cry, and Silence mocks at my despair: 

Tho' I in anguish pray to ease its ache 
Chill Sorrow's finger stills the lips of Prayer: 
Vl. 

Nay! Not all comfortless I walk alone, 
Nor in that darkness blindly fall and grope; 

God leads me in a path that is His own 
And over Reason shines the Larger Hope: 

If God be love then ours can never die, 
For we are Love and Love is born of Him, 

Fills this wide world, beyond our bending sky 
Chants in the raptures of the Seraphim; 



So, not with love that ends with mortal days 
Not with the love that dies with mortal breath, 

But with our souls attuned iu Heaven's praise 
I shall but love thee better after death. 






SEP 25 1903 



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